


Now i lay (with everywhere around)

by secrettemplars (tricycleamoving)



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, POV Second Person, Vagueness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricycleamoving/pseuds/secrettemplars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The violin came afterwards.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now i lay (with everywhere around)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> this is entirely [jynxiii's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jynxiii) fault. 
> 
> more second person and _very_ vague writing, short notes at the end!

The wind is strong today.

You hear the sound of coins, clinking as they hit the rusty metal surface of your little bowl, and you nod in what you hope is the right direction, not daring to speak. You don’t know how long it’s been, measuring the time in seconds and minutes: It could’ve been a month. It could’ve been a year. You don’t know, and you’re not sure if you want to know.

Although the area here is rural and far away from the capital (how far? You don’t know; you don’t want to know), people still talk. Even now you hear whispers, here and there, from passers-by who walk on without ever stopping to drop a few coins, so you keep your mouth shut. It is best if nobody realises who you are- who you _were_.

You don’t really remember how you got the bowl- you just remember finding it one day, one of the first few things you found out here, and tripping over it. It wasn’t a particularly bad fall, thankfully (you've had worse), and you picked up the bowl, running it under your fingers. The rust felt horrible, scraping against your skin, but you held on to it anyway. Perhaps you thought it was punishment of some sort, perhaps you just really needed a bowl. Perhaps it was both.

The violin came afterwards.

It was a gift, actually. Someone had passed by, back when you were still sitting down… somewhere else (you remember it being a particularly rocky area. The rocks dug into your thighs and tore through your pants, so you moved a week later). Her voice was familiar, as if you’d heard it somewhere before, soft and lilting, gentle and kind. You knew that if you chose to think about it deeper, analyse it further, you would remember the person behind the voice, but you didn’t. Nowadays, it was better not to think. Thinking only led to reminiscing and regretting, and that was something you didn’t need. Not right now. Not ever.

She had gasped, and whispered a name you hadn’t heard in a while, very low under her breath so no other passers-by could hear. You chose to say nothing in reply, but still she sighed and cooed, attempting to make conversation with someone who did not exist anymore. She left, in the end, much like how everyone else did, but not before softly pressing the bow and violin into your hands and pressing a kiss equally as soft to the bandages over your eyes.

She smelt faintly like peaches.

The violin was familiar to you in the way that adults were familiar with their childhood toys. You hadn’t touched one, not in years, and the last time you had played was… well. The last time you had played was not something you wanted to think about. It belonged to _before_ , and had no place here in the _after_. Either way, the strings were familiar, yet still felt like strangers underneath your fingertips, and it took you a while until you managed to play it properly again. Tuning was hard at first, too, but it took your mind away from its traitorous thoughts, and that was really all you could ask for.

Playing comes naturally to you now. Even though it brought more attention to you than you are perhaps comfortable with, passers-by tend to drop more coins in the bowl if you happened to play a particularly nice tune. They try to initiate conversation, sometimes, but you feign ignorance all the same.

The violin feels right when you play, your jaw resting against its smooth surface. This is the only time when you will allow yourself to play things from _before_ , rich, soothing tunes that make your bandages wet and your heart ache. You used to play a lot, in the first half of _before_ , and you remember feeling… happy. Like you were a ray of sunlight itself, warm and bright, and he would turn to you with light in his eyes-

Sometimes you improvise a melody instead.

You separate things into _before_ and _after_ , simply because it is easier that way. Technically speaking, there should be three categories: the _good before_ , the _bad before_ , and the _after_ , but it is more painful that way, with your heart clenching and your eyes burning with phantom pain. To only remember the _good before_ and ignore the _bad before_ hurts more, surprisingly, and for the first few nights of the _after_ , you toss and turn in your sleep. When you woke up, you swore you could feel the sticky, congealed blood on your hands, their pleas for mercy ringing in your ears like burning church bells.

Perhaps you deserve this.

(Though, with all the blood on your hands -no, your hands aren’t enough. you’ve done enough to be swimming in a lake full of drying blood-, death would be a much more merciful sentence.)

From far away, you hear the sound of footsteps both human and animal. The human’s stride is average, walking one-two-three-four like the beating of a heart, and the animal (a horse?) trots equally as slow. Wanderers, perhaps, or someone exploring the vicinity.

People like those tend to ask questions, so you play a melody from _before_ instead. Travellers tend to ask less, when you play things from _before_. Some of them stay until you finish, some of them pause for a second before moving on: either way, a coin or two will clink into the bowl and the footsteps will resume, fading away into the distance. No one ever stays.

This particular melody makes your heart hurt, but you play it regardless.

(You are masochistic, in many ways.)

The footsteps draw nearer, and you swear you have heard those footsteps before. You would analyse it further, but you are certain that those particular footsteps are from _before_ , and that is not something you want to think about. Not right now. Not ever.

You had a horse, once. Back during the _before_. You rode him a lot during the _good before_ , but then stopped when the _bad before_ happened.

You stopped doing a lot of things during the _bad before_.

The wind dies down a little, so your hair doesn’t tickle the back of your neck as much. The footsteps of the wanderer and his horse die down too, not too far from where you’re sat. You continue to play, waiting.

There were words to this melody, once. He sang it so beautifully it made your heart soar.

The footsteps start again, and this time, they continue until you are certain that they are standing right in front of you. Your hands tremble slightly, but still you continue to play, playing out that melody over and over again. You hear the sound of a pouch being opened, and then the coins clink one-two-three-four into the bowl, one after another, steady like a heartbeat.

The horse nickers quietly, and you keep playing.

The footsteps don’t go away.

The wanderer and their horse stays put, standing right in front of you as you play. You think of switching to another melody, but your hands continue to play it over and over and over again, because something about it just feels _right_ , this time. It hurts but it’s _right_.

Like most travellers usually do, you expect to be riddled with questions from the wanderer, but you get none. Instead you hear a soft inhale, then a whimper, then a sniffle. A sniffle turns into plenty turns into heavy breathing, and although you cannot see it you know the wanderer is crying. Perhaps if you reach your hand out, you might even manage to catch some of their tears.

You stop playing once the melody reaches its end, and tilt your head up in the direction of the crying. Still, you say nothing.

“Play it again,” the wanderer whispers, soft and low, “Please.”

Your fingers twitch.

You play it again, regardless.

_now i lay me down to dream of(nothing_

_i or any somebody or you_

_can begin to begin to imagine)_

_something which nobody may keep._

_now i lay me down to dream of Spring_

 

Your violin and bow feels foreign in your hands when you finish the song, as if your hands were not your own. You put your bow and violin down, lay them limply on your lap, as you look up at the source of the voice, chapped lips painfully parted in a silent question.

You hear the sound of clothes shuffling, two soft thuds in the dirt in front of you: he is kneeling down.

As if anticipating something, your hands clench, nails biting into your sweaty palms. You can feel a tingle starting to form on your cheek, the way that it does when someone is about to touch you, hovering close but not close enough, warmth radiating in the most painful way.

The first touch is soft, so soft that a faint gasp escapes your cracked lips. The hand on your right cheek is trembling, hesitant, even when the other hand ends up caressing your left cheek as well. Not only do you hear the gasping and the crying, you _feel_ it too, from the way his hands shake and from somewhere deep in your bones, as if finally unearthed after decades of decay.

He whispers your name from _before_ , over and over again like a prayer, tracing the edge of your bandages as he does so. You feel warm, warmer than you’ve ever been during the _after_.

You allow yourself to lean into the touch, careful and cautious.

(Once, you had a dream like this. You woke up to dirt beneath your face and the cold.)

It is only when you feel a soft touch to your right hand, your fingers intertwining with another’s as they are lifted up and pressed to a firm surface, that you allow yourself to believe. The fabric is soft, and underneath it, a heart beats one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, over and over and over again.

This is real.

 _He_ is real.

You lift your hand away from his heart and move it upwards, brushing it against the curve of his cheek, slowly resting it there. He is so warm. Your bandages are wet again.

“Kouki,” you finally say. It feels right rolling off your tongue.

“Sei,” he replies (and here you can feel him move under your hand, lips curling into a wet smile), “ _Sei_.”

The wind blows, and he presses his lips to yours.

It feels right.

**Author's Note:**

> this whole thing is supposed to be part of an au that jynxiii and i thought up but... idk if i should talk about the plot if we haven't really written anything concrete for it? technically this fic is more of an aftermath fic than it is of the actual au lmao
> 
> Notes:  
> 1\. title and song/poem in the fic comes from E.E. Cummings. There's actually a [really nice song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83GqGbQIb8s) with lyrics from the poem, so that's cool. 
> 
> 2\. I feel like I made akashi a lot more sympathetic than he really should've been but... [shrugs]. I wonder what y'all think the au is about from just this lmao
> 
> 3\. I was originally going to write one from Furihata's pov too, but then decided against it? I kinda like it just like this, all vague and ramble-y. 
> 
> 4\. EDIT: NEW NOTE. so idk i debated making this an actual note last night when i posted but. maybe i'll just put it here for people who perhaps didn't realise?? akashi's blind in the fic. i don't really like writing about blind characters as if their disability... takes away from their character? like all that "oh no i'm blind this is horrible and i can't see" stuff, idk i don't really dig it. So in the entire fic I don't write about things he sees, but I don't want to treat it as if its an inherently horrible thing? he's very much blind, but it doesn't take away from his ability to survive is my point i suppose. should i put it up in the tags though? 
> 
> (the story behind his blindness is something for another day though >>)
> 
> Thanks for reading, please leave a kudos or comment if so inclined!


End file.
